Janine Antoni and Stephen Petronio at the Tang Museum

Janine Antoni and Stephen Petronio at the Tang Museum, Skidmore College, through July 16, 2017.

Blog Post by Dr. Melody Davis

 

It’s a clothes line, a simple rope, with associations ranging from the mundane to the metaphysical.  In the performance of Antoni, a visual artist, and Petronio, a choreographer and dancer, the rope becomes a dynamic force and form that the duo enact.  As with most performances, a still photograph gives no sense of the fluidity and physical rhythm between the pair who talk as they lean, balance, pull, twine and loop, oscillating between tension and slack.  I instantly thought of Senga Nengudi’s  performative sculptures with pantyhose.  The artists were available for a live performance and discussion on April 6th, but if you missed it, don’t despair, for two installations will still be available to visitors to the Tang.  On the Table (through April 30th) presents a table cloth woven of neck ties, with separate ties for each chair around the table.   The artists think of it as a space for discussion, where the visitors wear the table setting, literally connected with it.  Honey Baby (May 13-July 16) will present a full-body submersion of a performer in the medium of honey, in order to visualize human movement in utero.